Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire

by Liz Brown

The unbelievable true story of Harrison Post--the enigmatic lover of the richest man in 1920s Hollywood--and the battle for a family fortune.

At the turn of the 20th century, William Andrews Clark was one of the richest, most respected men in Los Angeles, but he had as his lover Harrison Post. The son of a man known as "The Copper King of Montana," Clark moved to Los Angeles and after buying amansion on Adams Blouevard, he set about establishing himself in the city's cultural he co-founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic, established a wing of the library at UCLA, and helped build the Hollywood bowl. William Clark and Harrison Post's relationship had ended before Clark's death, but much to the chagrin of his family, Clark left Post a fortune of his own. And this is where Harrison's toroubles began. In a story that takes readers from the glamor of Hollywood in the 1920s to a Nazi prison camp and back, Twilight Man tells the story of an illicit love and the battle over a family fortune that would destroy one man's life.

Harrison Post's was forgotten for decades, but after a chance encounter with his portrait, Liz Brown, herself a descendant of William Clark's family, set out to learn his story. Twilight Man is more than just a biography, it is an exploration of how families shape their own legacies, and the lengths they will go to in order to do so.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, True Crime, Gay, LGBT, Queer

395 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 18, 2021

Reviews

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was furiously disappointed in this book. I appreciate all the research the author did, and she tells us that there isn't a lot of material out there about the man at the center of the book, Harrison Post, the lover of the wealthy Will Clark. But if all the historical context and outright speculation ("probably" this happened, "possibly" he thought this, "Would she have...?, etc.) was taken out of this 350 page book, there would be about 150 pages left. For the first half of Post's life, there is very little documentation. Brown turns one sentence from an associate of Clark's (who, by her own admission was unreliable) about outrageous orgies in Post's home into proof that these things happened. At some point, Post was ordered to leave his neighborhood, but no reason was given, so Brown assumes the "orgies" are the reason. So many of the incidents in the lives of Clark and Post are related so vaguely as to cry out for more documentation.

The last quarter of the book has the opposite problem; the author draws on the journals of Post, and so relates seemingly every thing that Post thought and did in his last couple of years on earth, no matter how trivial. Buried in all this is an interesting, if slim, narrative, and the author's own story behind delving into Post's life makes for good reading. She is also, mostly, a good stylist and the book is easy to read. But ultimately, I'm not sure it was worth plowing through all the excess for the kernels of a hidden gay romance and its aftermath.

[Ricky Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving and memorable account of a forgotten figure from Hollywood's past, Twilight Man is the author's deeply-researched love letter to a distant relative she never knew and the man that he loved. As a gay woman herself, Liz Brown clearly identifies with her ancestor (by marriage) but the real star is his lover, a mysterious man called Harrison Post. Around the middle portion of this meticulously detailed non-fiction book I struggled a bit to see where it was going and overcome the tangents that the writing often derailed into but the latter half engrossed me in an incredible story of resilience and survival against astounding odds. I came to truly care for Harrison and felt intensely connected to him and his cinematically epic yet tragically real life. Brown takes you all over the world to bear witness to this extraordinary life and the many struggles and conflicts that Harrison faced. At times she gets bogged down in attempting to give historical context and interjects anecdotes and facts that seem superfluous to the overall point of the book. Just because the Clark family made their money in copper does not mean we need to know in detail how the tectonic plates create the metal in the earth. The research is still impressive and certainly informative and the human elements here shine through brilliantly. The lives documented are certainly noteworthy and the people are flawed but wonderfully complex. I am so glad I got the chance to know Harrison Post and I now feel deeply connected to his story. Twilight Man is full of the bittersweet grit of reality but also radiates with the glamorous glitz of Gatsby and Old Hollywood.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing real life biography of a young gay man who gets swept up with the rich and famous in the 20th Century because of his beauty. Harrison Post will be remembered now because of this wonderful book. I love stories about everyday people who end up involved with the rich and famous. Excellent read and perfect suggestion for Pride month.

[Dennis Holland · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might be the biography of a little known homosexual Old Hollywood socialite but it reads like mystery fiction. All the real life drama—from family secrets and secret romances to Nazis and Norway and more—is so unbelievably riveting, it’s nearly impossible to believe this one man’s life story is true.

[willowdog · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm fascinated with the serendipity of chance. When Liz Brown finds a photograph of Harrison Post in her deceased grandmother's drawer, it leads her down an engrossing journey in discovering her family history and it's secret 'twilight' gay member, and this wonderful sidebar into the world of the fabulously wealthy Montana copper mining Clark family.
This book is fascinating. It shows what great archival research and purpose can discover about a seemingly forgotten man who lived on the fringes of wealth as a 'copain' of Will Clark, Jr. As background, the book traces the history of the Clark fortune and the powerful men that built it. By using the journals, diaries, notebooks and scrapbooks provided by a family member and extensive research and interviews, Harrison Post, the man and his fascinating life come boldly into focus. And a riveting life it is! The work throws light on the 'twilight' gay world of the 20's through 40's in California and beyond.
This is a wonderful read.
Thanks to Edelweiss/Above the Treeline for this free electronic copy in exchange for a unbiased review.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book because Amazon told me that some customers who had bought or browsed my own very recently published book had also read this one. And while there are plenty of similarities -- both are books about rich gay men who become involved with younger men in the 1920s -- there are also lots of big differences. There's a lot more scandal and unhappiness in this book. Brown can't answer all the questions she has about Harrison Post and Will Clark, but that's not her fault; there are limits to the evidence. I found it riveting and finished it in about 24 hours.

Bonus: if you loved Empty Mansions, this is the story of Huguette's older half-brother and his lover.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Brown's fault, but the slice of life I was interested in — the romantic relationship between Clark and Post — was the one with the least information available to her. Well done in general. But this was much more Ruin than Love.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Secrets and lies pervade this biography of two men who met in 1920s Los Angeles- the wealthy and powerful Andrew Clark and Albert Harrison, who transformed himself into Harrison Post when he became Clark's secret lover. Post eventually moved into Clark's home and, at his death, inherited a small fortune from him. However, his life was so much more tragic than positive that it's amazing he lived as long aa he did. Brown does a nice job tracing how the Clark family fortune was built and how the family did its best to wrest everything from Post. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. Interesting read.

[Steven Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

PATHETIC AND THE KITCHEN SINK
If asked to characterized this true story in a word I'd have to say "pathetic." If asked to characterize the style of the writer, I'd have to say "everything but the kitchen sink."

W.A. Clark, Sr. was a true robber baron of the Gilded Age. Men like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt while also characterized as such were neither. They didn't come from nobility and they got rich not by stealing from the public, but by providing services people wanted to buy. Clark, however, according to Brown, was dishonest, disdainful of the "little people," and otherwise simply a corrupt businessman man who made his millions mining copper just when electricity came into general use. He used this wealth to bribe and coerce himself into positions of power and expansion of his enterprises. Not a great guy. However, his first son, William Clark, Jr. (Will), took the millions he inherited from his father (likely several billion in today's money) and became a philanthropist. The first third of this book tells that story. So what's the Clarks have to do with the "twilight man?"

Along with being a philanthropist, Will Clark was also a homosexual, much to his father's chagrin. In the early 1920s, he walked into a clothier in San Francisco to buy a suit and walked out with the clerk who served him. Harrison Post become Will's lover, although Brown points out that at that time other words were used to describe Post's relationship with Clark ("close" friend, cavort, secretary). Even when the two men were apart (which was a lot of the time in order to dispel suspicion of their true relationship), Will literally bestows millions on Post, houses, cars, a huge salary for a made-up job, and more. Post will never actually work in any meaningful occupation for the rest of his life. This story essentially makes up the middle section of this book.

In 1934 Will dies and leaves Post a healthy inheritance that will soon be absconded by his criminal sister and her con man husband. The rest of the book is Post's life after Clark. Much of it focused on getting his (Will's) money back from his sibling. During WW2 Post becomes a prisoner of war of the Nazis which I found the most interesting part of Post's story. How this happened is once again because someone took pity on poor Harrison remaining loyal to him, loaning him money, till the very end of Post's life. Still dependent on the kindness of others, Post died in 1947, only forty-nine years old.

Post is a barnacle who manages through charm, looks, perhaps even some black magic, to affix himself to the Clark fortune. Because of their massive wealth in the decade of the "roaring twenties," Post is able to move in the circles of elite Hollywood stars and somehow ingratiates himself with many of them. Even after Will's death and the evaporation of Harrison's inheritance, these celebrities still put Post up in their homes and loan him money. Yes, he does believe through an alcoholic and incompetent attorney, he's going to bring his conniving sister and brother-in-law to justice and recover his fortune, a song he sings repeatedly, his rich friends still had to see after years of chasing this dream, it was never going to happen.

I'm an American and like most other Americans, heavily influenced by the Pilgrim "myth of the yeoman farmer." So, as I read the pitiful story of Harrison Post I could only think how pathetic he was and wonder what it was about him that kept his friends so loyal to the very end. Perhaps other readers take sympathy on poor "delicate" Harrison (a code word at the time for men thought to be gay), but not me.

As for Brown's style, her prose is conversational and easy to read and there's no doubt her research for this story is ponderous. The problem for me is that she wanted to "tell" us everything she learned. She shares an interesting tale, but it needs some better editing. There's a long chapter at the beginning of the book that attempts to explain how she came to write it. I suggest you take notes and create an organization chart of the players while wading through it. I was lost and ready to give up when it mercifully ended. Then, in "five: parts, Brown gives a more straight forward telling of the story as she understands it. She does a decent job of identifying what she can corroborate as fact and what is simply conjecture on her part based on circumstantial evidence.

Sometimes, she strays into textbook mode. I'm a retired history teacher and didn't need a biography of Oscar Wilde (although her attempts to compare him with Will, Jr. were intriguing), nor did I need an explanation as to the origins of WW1 and WW2, nor a lesson on the French emperor Maximillian and his short-lived reign over Mexico.

All that said, I did find the insight her book provides into the lives of evidently one of the worst magnates of the Gilded Age, and the secret and tragic life of his son, to be interesting once I could strip away a lot of the minutia. As for sad, pathetic Harrison Post, Brown admits there's not enough of the historical record that survives (that we know of), to explain the spell he was somehow able to cast over the rich people he knew. Pondering that question makes, I suppose, this book worth the read.

[Stuart Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few lives could be as improbable and bizarre as that of Harrison Post who became the lover of one of the richest men in Gilded Age America, cavorted through 1920s Hollywood with movie stars, was swindled by his own sister, found refuge in a remote Norwegian village in the 1930s, was imprisoned by the Nazis, and died suddenly in San Francisco where he was suing his sister for fraud. It's truly an amazing story, complicated by Post's constantly changing version of his life, one that can be said to be possible "only in America". Brown also depicts the life that even very wealthy homosexual men had to lead in the first half of the 20th century, defining terms and phrases that would have been appropriately interpreted as coded references to the "love that dare not speak its name." It's also no coincidence that Post's lover, William Andrews Clark, Jr. was an important collector of Oscar Wilde material--all of which remain in the William Andrews Clark Library in Los Angeles. Anyone interested in the Gilded Age or homosexual life pre-Stonewall will want to read this.

[Nancy Loe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't wait to read this. Should have been a page-turner, but instead was a padded slog. While I appreciate the research, the final product is disappointing and even dull.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh my god, this poor man. An interesting yet stressful read; part 2 felt really slow- perhaps some more editing as there were many tangents about Oscar Wilde and much purple prose, but the rest was engaging and heart wrenching. A family tree for both Will and Harrison would have also been useful in following the many characters, especially those who changed their names frequently.

[Lorraine Herbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating glimpse into two men forced (or sometimes choosing) to conceal their true selves in early twentieth-century California. I very much admired the author’s research skills as well as her wonderful vocabulary. She decoded the gendered language of those early decades, making it possible for the reader to understand the ways in which gay men lived a twilight life.

I listened to the audiobook version of Twilight Man, and Bronson Pinchot was magnificent. I’ll need to keep an eye out for any more books that he records.

My only criticism of the book was the size of its cast of characters. While the two men at the heart of the story were easy to follow, as were the villains and the Hollywood celebrities, lots of the others seemed to pop up and then disappear and then pop up again. Sure, this is the way of things in real life, but it might have been better to forego less important details and characters to keep the narrative moving along.

Still, this is a great book, and I highly recommend. If you can, listen to the audiobook. It enhances the whole experience.

[Mam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually borrowed an audio book from my library, but the edition is not listed. SO, it was an interesting, if sad, story. The most interesting part of this for me was the author's description of how she found a photograph of an unknown young man in her late grandmother's home.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an enthralling story! Brown follows a mysterious photo into her family’s past and finds much more than she ever expected. The facts around her long lost relative are fascinating, and the text is so well written that I was swept into the world she describes. If some of these twists and turns happened in a novel, I’d think it was a bit too much to believe, which makes it even more amazing that this incredible story had been lost until Brown started her research. I’m so glad she found the photo and followed the clues on her way to creating this wonderful book!

[Katie Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

William A. Clark, Jr., is the son of a copper magnate, now primarily a millionaire philanthropist at the beginning of L.A.'s rise to glitz and glamour. Harrison Post is a young, beautiful salesclerk with a hardscrabble past and a knack for reinventing himself. They meet and fall in love - so far, so Hollywood. But this is the beginning of the 20th century, and Will's money and power will only reach so far, especially once he dies. What will become of Harrison, left behind and in ill health?

This is a story told from the margins - after Will's death, his secretary destroyed any correspondence or documents she considered inappropriate, and the most detailed source is a blisteringly bitter "moral outrage" book by an extortionist (formerly one of Will's friends and closest business associates). Harrison's life after Will's death is very sad, featuring guardian abuse/exploitation, fraud, and Nazi Germany. I'm glad in the end his foster sister was a true friend to him.

Yet despite its depressing nature, this is an absorbing story. There is fear involved, but Will's money and power do shield him and Harrison from the kind of attacks that other gay men routinely face throughout this book. People go after them, but Will bribes with abandon, paying off prosecutors and splashing lavish philanthropy to make himself a less appealing target. It made me think a lot about people who didn't have those kinds of options.

The author is tenuously connected to Will - his second wife had a niece who was the author's grandmother. This gives her an interest in the story, and a small "in" for sources, but isn't a close enough tie to prevent her from being clear-eyed about some things. Both Will and his father's choices to install teenage lovers in French apartments come in for scrutiny, for example.

Honestly, of the two men, Harrison is the one who touched me the deepest. I'm glad I learned about his story, and that he had some peace at the end.

For those interested in more gay couples from early Hollywood (and/or in a happier ending), I thoroughly recommend reading up on William Haines and Jimmie Shields. Haines, a popular silent-film actor, refused to give up his partner Jimmie and was blackballed for it. They were together for nearly 50 years, and became very successful interior designers in Hollywood. Joan Crawford, one of their many friends, called them "the happiest marriage in Hollywood". I saw a musical based on them (The Tailor-Made Man) that was truly beautiful.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of how Liz Brown came to write her book Twilight Man was perhaps more intriguing that the book itself. In cleaning out her grandmother’s house after she died, Brown found a photograph of a man she didn’t know. She eventually found he was Harrison Post, a “secretary” of Will Clark, whom she was semi-related to. Clark, a wildly rich Angeleno, founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hollywood Bowl. Furthermore, she discovered Harrison Post had been Clark’s lover. My interest was peaked. Brown’s book, however, for me, proved to be less intriguing in its execution. The history told is fascinating. Post’s life proves to be complicated and full of mystery and shady goings-on. Clark’s tale is compelling enough, for he went to great lengths to protect his reputation despite living fairly openly with his lover. Clark was the world’s foremost collector of Oscar Wilde memorabilia and manuscripts. And Brown is fond of alluding to Wilde’s life. And therein lies the rub. She fills her book with minutia. Not only is her story interrupted with her Wilde stories—that supposedly relate to Clark and Post’s situation—but she tells us the plot of every movie Post goes to see. Towards the end of the book, Brown spends an entire page relating the tale of the song “Just a Gigolo,” telling us of its writer, the story the song tells, and the recordings of the song, all to end with “Poor Harrison.” I know she was drawing a parallel here, but by the time this comes in the book, I no longer cared about Harrison Post. She ends with, in the time honored tradition of biographies, updates on many of the characters. By that time, I had ceased to care and almost couldn’t place how some of these people figured in the lives of Harrison Post and Will Clark. And finally, in a book steeped in the lore of old Hollywood about two men who died decades ago, she relates a tale of the Kardashians. I won’t go into detail because readers who persevere with the book may like the story. I found it very much jarring and out of place. I enjoyed the history but not the histrionics of the author as she tried to make her story enjoyable and relevant.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, well-researched Hollywood gay noir, the story of William A. Clark Jr., heir to an enormous Gilded Age fortune, and Harrison Post, Clark's handsome younger "secretary."

Brown crafts a wonderful story of Clark's and Post's lives, and she astutely draws connections from the works of Oscar Wilde, Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the movie Gilda, and even Kim Kardashian. The five-part book spans 1882 to 1946, but most of the action takes place during the Thirties. At times, there are surprising gaps due to Clark's and Post's secretiveness and the lack of living witnesses, so Brown frequently resorts to speculation, including her suspicions of Clark's pedophilia. Before Clark's death, Post's story was shaded by rumor and innuendo. Consequently, the second half of this book, in which Post experiences one crisis after another, is much more engaging. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Though Post often seems like an unaccomplished man-child, he endures so much hardship (including imprisonment for 3 years by the Nazis) that I rooted for him to restore his fortune. The story would make a great, although tragic, TV miniseries.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

There're really too many interesting and well-documented persons in this book, which makes the read too little for too many of them while also feeling like a whirl-wind of people and info.

But I did love the author's point - that its unusual to have so much information on a gay pair in happiness. She notes that most gay folk hid and only entered the public record at the worst moment of their lives, with that being recorded by hostile police and courts. To've had a copper king's heir and his ward/secretary/something visible and happy in the public record is a rare treat.

[Glen Helfand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding meaning in family history, particularly the distant, forgotten stuff, can be so eye opening. "Twilight Man" starts with an intriguing photo of a dashing man in a box in grandma's house. It sets Liz Brown on a research quest that unspools a narratively propulsive lineage. Brown's skill at piecing together information has the integrity of an art restorer, fitting together pieces from material that was meant to be buried--this is a story of gay men in power at a time when their identity was not nearly as accepted as it is today. Part of what makes this book so fascinating is that sense of just how imperiled William Andrews Clark Jr., the heir to a wide ranging Montana dynasty, and his longtime lover Harrison Post were simply because of their queer identities. They lived large, built walls around their palatial homes, developed psychological armor, and perpetually faced the specter of being publicly shamed and financially ruined. This is a family saga that careens through immense wealth, the developing West, Gold Rush, Hollywood's decadent early days, assumed identities, Nazi persecution, despicable siblings, white privilege, gossip columnists and fast friends. While she's a member of this family, and queer herself, Brown tells the story as a kind of biographical historian, though brackets the book with contemporary context-- it's a fitting approach as the story has its own momentum, and functions as a narrative of ambition, capitalism, and a search for happiness --universal stuff.

[Alex Jackman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrison Post is the kept lover of the rich benefactor behind the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl, and his life is beautiful until it isn't. The book follows Post from the social scene of 1920s Hollywood to the grips of a Nazi prison camp, from rags to riches and back again.

Well paced, with elements of mystery, misery, history, and romance, Twilight Man reads easy like fiction — and at times the story feels as though it must be. While the text aims to tie itself to Oscar Wilde and his Dorian Gray, it also shares DNA with The Celluloid Closet, A Little Life, and even The Talented Mr. Ripley. Those interested in queer history will enjoy the book, for others there is likely not much here.

[Rick Rapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brown's tale is a sad one chronicling the lives of two gay men in a time when "love couldn't speak its name." It especially focuses on the younger and softer Harrison Post, whose name like much in his life was an invention. Truly a story that defies credibility, Harrison's life was "gutter to mansion to the brink of the gutter." His softness did not equip him for the realities of life and he was the target of jealousy, greed, bigotry, and indifference. Despite its sadness, something is lacking that keeps this from being tragic. Perhaps it's the lack of nobility and stature of the protagonist; perhaps it's his weakness that contributed to his "destruction." Brown's novel is a name-dropper's jewel box. She rarely leaves out anyone with whom Harrison interacted. Annoying on one hand, it does provide a historical context for the life of a troubled young closeted gay man and his older "sugar daddy."

[Harrison Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. A true well-researched story of the "secret lover" of William Andrews Clark, Jr., the millionaire founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and heir to the Clark copper fortune. The lover, Harrison Post, inherited much of Clark's fortune, and he became a part of the Hollywood upper class. But he was soon scandalized by his own sister and her husband, who conspired to rob of his inheritance. Harrison happened to be in Norway when WWII broke out, where he was detained in a Nazi camp before being eventually moved the Germany. As a Jewish man, his detention by the Nazis makes for suspenseful reading. In my view, this book could be made into a engrossing movie, or streaming series. The author, Liz Brown, deserves kudos for her work putting this together.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contained some incredible research task to reconstruct the life of a closeted gay man named Harrison Post who was the "Copain"/consort of Will Clark, an extremely rich financier in the 1920s-1940s. Harrison Post had his life take an amazing number of twists and turns. I think the author spent too much time researching and explaining the Clark family, to whom she was a distant relative and all this convoluted genealogy detracted from the actual story of Mr. Post. I think the author did as best as she could with this daunting task however, the book seemed to me to be more entertaining when it was dealing with Post rather than than Clark.

[Forthton · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow. I cannot say enough about this book. It moved me in ways I have not been moved by a book in many years. Liz Brown's prose style is what I have been yearning for since Jan Morris passed. She is, to overuse a word.. superlative. The story was sad, but so well described and while Ms. Brown expresses a point of view on the subject, it is not misplaced, but puts the issues and struggles of her subject into a history that makes them more relevant to a modern reader. I cannot wait to see what she writes next. It's always exciting when one discovers a writer with such style and careful thought... One of the two best books I read during the pandemic :)

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twilight man was a code name for a gay man back in the dark days of the twentieth century. Harrison Post was forced to hide his sexual relationship with Will Clark to avoid social ruin and legal calamity. Financial ruin was another risk for Clark who was the son of a Montana copper tycoon. Harrison Post actually concealed many parts of his identity. His life was a wild ride, from obscure Jewish heritage to darling of Hollywood's glitterati, only to end up caught in Hitler's war machine. (A distant relative of the author was related to the Clark family. That relationship sparked her interest but left my curiosity a bit unsatisfied.)

[Bill Burgwinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could barely put it down. Amazing story, told from a gay perspective, as it needs to be, and full of the history of LA, San Francisco, Montana, with interludes in Norway, and lots and lots about the corruption and stupid prejudice that reigned over the 20s and 30s. Hollywood is an underworld but also has its own sources of corruption and we see it grow and crash over the course of the book. Brilliant research, a great personal angle, and all about a shadowy figure we never really get to know but around whom scandals, money, disappointment, ambition, books, art and Nazis swirl. Loved it.

[Beth Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story! The author found a photograph in her grandmother's dresser, decided to figure out who it was, and ended up uncovering the deep dark secrets of her wealthy great-uncle and his secret lover, the handsome and charming Harrison Post. And that's only the first part of the book. The story follows Harrison through multiple re-inventions, betrayal, deception, and incredible turns of luck (mostly bad). The writing is lucid and lovely and carries you effortlessly back to another time. Really fantastic read.

[Zach Naumowicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I already knew a bit about the Clark empire from Empty Mansions but Brown's new insight and stories about Will Clark Jr and his lover Harrison Post was fascinating. I need to make a trip to the Clark Library to see the fresco of Post asap!

If you enjoy a story that winds from the late gilded age to the early 1940s with many many characters centered around a trust fund baby and his aimless young lover you'll churn through this book quickly.

The author is distantly related to the Clark family which gives the book a personal feel.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe because I live in Montana where it all started, but I find the Clark family history of wealth, power, and influence fascinating. The Clark family is also tied to the history of Los Angeles which is the primary focus here. Bill Dedman’s book Empty Mansions is better written, more comprehensive and definitely recommended, but this is the story of one individual in their orbit. How the author came to her subject is a story in itself and this book offers another intriguing look at a piece of this family and their sad endings.